Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Changed

A couple of dear friends from church had found out we were in the ER and came to visit us while we waited for the MRI results. We were laughing and talking and making jokes about the baby being born soon. Then our doctor walked in and said she had the results. I asked if our friends could stay with us and she got a serious look on her face and said, "The results we got are very serious." I saw my friend's faces fall, and my hand immediately flew to my mouth, and tears filled my eyes. The two of them left quickly and I walked over to Trevor and held his hand tighter than I had ever held it, and we waited for her to continue. "The MRI results show a 2cm mass in Trevor's brain. We do not know what it is or how long it's been there. We contacted neurosurgeon Dr. Abassi and you have an appointment with him at 9:00am tomorrow morning to discuss the specifics." As she is saying all this, I look at Trevor and start crying and cup his face in my hands and just start kissing his face and saying, "oh honey, oh honey, oh honey." He has a look of total shock on his face. I don't think he's fully registering what she is saying. Our lives just completely changed. Forever. She starts talking again. "A nurse will be in to unhook the IV and then you both may go home whenever you are ready." "Can we please have a few moments alone?" I asked. I didn't recognize my voice. I felt dizzy. "Please, whenever you are ready, push this button to let us know you are ready. Take your time." And with that she got up and left. We were shocked. We didn't even know what to do. I can honestly say I forgot I was pregnant. All that existed were those results and this man sitting in front of me who I loved more than anything on this earth. Nothing was certain. We had no facts other than there was a mass in his brain. I had no idea what that meant. Trevor just held me and said, "It's going to be alright, okay Marybeth? Jesus has got us. Everything is going to be okay. Marybeth look at me, I love you." He was being so strong for me, when he was the one who was just told he had an unidentifiable mass in his brain. We pushed the button and got ready to go home. Then the nurse handed me a piece of paper she had printed off. "If you want to read over this there are some details for you." On the top of the paper it said: Brain Tumors. I stopped. I hadn't even thought the words brain tumor. The only thing I knew about brain tumors was that people died from them. I quickly folded that piece of paper up and stuffed it in my purse. I haven't read the entire thing to this day. Trevor drove home and we were in total silence. When we got home we fell on the bed and wept in each other's arms. It was pretty late at night and we knew we had many phone calls to make, but we needed each other's presence desperately in that moment. I started asking him if he felt anything or if he was okay and he finally just had to stop me and say, "Marybeth, I'm the same I was yesterday before we knew I had the brain tumor. I can still do all the things I did before. It's not going to hurt me right now." I knew he was right, but... my love had a brain tumor! How do you handle that? What do you say? What do you do? I was lost. I was scared. Trevor got up and went into the kitchen to grab his Bible. He flipped to Isaiah 53:5. Over and over he read the words: "by his wounds we are healed." He made me repeat it over and over. He said God is still the same. Trust Him. I just cried. I'm not sure how we slept that night, only that after making all those terrible phone calls, we finally fell exhausted into bed. The next morning we got up and headed to the hospital to talk to the neurosurgeon. We had no idea what was coming.